K12 Headlines

11/25/2013

The majority of low-performing schools that received financial assistance from the federal government two years ago made gains in reading and math scores, but about one-third of the schools actually declined or showed no improvement.

After declaring all 9th-grade seats filled for 2013-14, disappointing hundreds of applicants, two of the city's most popular public high schools quietly admitted at least 85 more students, according to the Recovery School District.

Philadelphia-based Education Law Center cites poor academic performance, high student turnover, fraud charges involving former officials at two cybers, and the $366.6 million cost of the 15 cyber charters already operating in the state.

11/22/2013

Ronald Dufalla, superintendent of Pittsburgh-based Brentwood Borough School District for eight years, will retire at the end of June. Dufalla, 59, of McKeesport, has worked in education for 38 years, 37 of which he spent in Brentwood.

Efforts to require that most Texas high school students take Algebra II under new graduation standards suffered a blow Wednesday when the chairmen of the House and Senate education committees flatly rejected the idea.

The New York State Assembly criticized plans to create a statewide website to store students' test scores and make the information available to parents. Assembly members spent two hours Wednesday questioning Education Commissioner John King about potential security breaches in the system.

If Americans know Education Secretary Arne Duncan for anything at this point, it would be as the guy who last week said that opposition to national K12 educational standards sprang from "white suburban moms" who feared that tougher requirements would reveal their children to be not as "brilliant" as they thought.

Four men were arrested for trespassing at a Seattle school building where their organization taught a culturally-based curriculum for African-American students. Representatives from Seattle Public Schools, which owns the off-campus Horace Mann building, said that the district wanted to renovate the facility and called the police because some members of the organization refused to leave.

Former New Haven, Conn. Superintendent of Schools Reginald Mayo, who saw the construction and rehabilitation of nearly 40 schools during his reign, attended a groundbreaking Wednesday for yet another school, this time one that will be demolished and rebuilt to bear his name.

Summarizing his view of the state of public education in Utah, Superintendent Martell Menlove said the school system is "amazingly successful but with ever-present needs for improvement." Menlove's remarks came during the annual State of Education Address at M. Lynn Bennion Elementary School.

For more than 25 years, I’ve opposed state takeovers of public schools. I do not believe the state has the ability to improve the quality of education of New Jersey’s urban schools. The track record for school takeovers in New Jersey has been questionable at best.

Mayfield High School junior Jacqueline Sanchez will take 14 standardized tests this year. "We are no longer tested based on what is taught," Jacqueline told a crowd of students, parents and educators Wednesday evening. "We are taught based on what is being tested, and that is abusive."

John LeGendre has longstanding ties with Glendale Landmark, formerly known as Unit One and Glendale Grammar School. His grandmother and mother taught at the school, he attended Unit One and his two sons currently attend Landmark. He tells his kids: “We have history there, so you have to behave yourself.” That’s 100 years of history—an achievement few and far between in a state so newly built out.

Charlie Baker spent his morning at Rogers Middle School in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston. The Massachusetts Candidate for Governor was shadowing Curtis Cowts as part of the city's principal for a day program, where leaders from government to business to the arts see the highs and lows first-hand of running a Boston school.